Suspect Allegedly Unloaded His Entire Pistol in Texas Deputy

HOUSTON (AP) — A suburban Houston police officer who was ambushed at a gas station was shot 15 times, Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said in court Monday.

The suspect, Shannon Miles, is in custody but “we have not been able to extract any details regarding a motive at this point,” said Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman. The anti-police rhetoric surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, he added, has ramped up “to the point where calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers happens.” In the aftermath of such tragedy, it is perhaps an understandable sentiment. Beneath such comments is the implication that the fallout from the last year’s protests, which arose in Ferguson, Mo., has made police beats more deadly. Anderson said investigators saw surveillance video from the gas station, which showed that Goforth, 47, had just come out of the store after he had pumped gas and that Miles got out of his red truck and approached the deputy. “He runs up behind Deputy Goforth and puts the gun to the back of his head and shoots. Miles’ criminal record begins in 2005, when he was convicted of criminal mischief, giving false information to police and resisting arrest, according to records.

Goforth, 47, was pumping gas at a Chevron station Friday night in Cypress, a middle- to upper-middle-class suburban area of Harris County located northwest of Houston, when the gunman approached him from behind and fired multiple shots, continuing to fire after the deputy had fallen to the ground. And while the numbers for police killed in ambushes this year are not available, the overall number of police killed by guns is down and near historic lows.

The killing evoked strong emotions in the local law enforcement community, with Hickman linking it to heightened tension over the treatment of African-Americans by police. Public confidence in police has fallen to a 22-year low, according to Gallup, and that has left departments from Baltimore to Virginia Beach, Va., feeling “under siege.” “When you see officers in Baltimore going through what they’re going through – and in Ferguson and New York – that affects morale here,” Brian Luciano, president of the Virginia Beach Police Benevolent Association, told The Virginian-Pilot. “You just see your brothers and sisters, and that could be you.” Some officers have said that they see more belligerence in those they stop on the street. And they rejected the claim that their movement led to the officer’s murder. “It is sad that some have chosen to politicize this tragedy by falsely attributing the officer’s death to a movement seeking to end violence,” DeRay Mckesson, a leader in the movement, tweeted. “I do not condone killing,” he added. “Police are under siege in every quarter,” said Gene Ryan, president of Baltimore’s Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, in a statement. “They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty.” On Saturday, hundreds of Houston residents showed up at the Chevron station where Mr.

Carol Hayes, an African-American woman who attended the vigil, told NBC News that her family had always felt welcome in the area. “I wanted to demonstrate that all lives matter, regardless of color,” she said.